This study contributes to the literature on hypocrisy in corporate social responsibility (CSR) by investigating how organizations adapt their non-financial disclosure after a scandal and examining stakeholders’ perceptions of these organizations’ legitimacy and hypocritical behavior. Based on legitimacy and signaling theory, the research design included:

i) a content analysis of non-financial disclosures by 11 organizations to investigate how they responded to major scandals in terms of CSR reporting

ii) a content analysis of independent counter accounts to detect the presence of views that contrast with the corporate disclosure and suggest hypocritical behaviors

iii) a 2x2 between-subject experiment to examine how stakeholders perceive companies’ actions that aim to restore their eroded legitimacy through reporting.

Four patterns in the adaptation of reporting emerge from information collected on scandals and CSR actions. Companies that take responsibility and develop remedial CSR activities are perceived as less hypocritical and more legitimate.